


Mind, Body, and Soul

by CaptainJZH



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Spectacular Spider-Man (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Contains cursing/swearing, Further warnings to be added, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Peter goes full dark side in this, Second warning doesn't apply until chapter 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-15 23:50:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13624077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainJZH/pseuds/CaptainJZH
Summary: AU where Flash Thompson never gave Peter that much needed calling-out in Intervention, and thus Peter slid further and further into the black suit’s influence.I've always wanted a "Spidey gives into the Symbiote" story, and now I've finally gotten the motivation to write one.Diverges from canon after the confrontation with Eddie in the Spectacular Spider-Man episode, "Intervention"





	1. Prologue

“Ugh, Gwen. What does she want with us now?”

 

Peter bitterly rejected the call, shoving his phone back into his pocket.

 

“Forget it. She and Eddie can have a ‘Pete’s Such A Disappointment’ Dance together.”

 

Flash only glared at Peter from the other end of the room. He had come here to slap some sense into the dork-turned-jerk, but after seeing Peter’s violent confrontation with Eddie out front, he decided that it wasn’t worth it. Peter was an asshole, but Flash figured that assholes would get whatever was coming to them soon enough.

 

Peter shoved Flash aside as he made his way to the elevator.

 

“ _ Nobody gets in our way _ ,” the Symbiote said in Peter’s mind, “ _ Especially not fuckers like Flash who’ve been making fun of us our whole life _ .”

 

Flash walked away and shook his head as the elevator doors closed. Peter’s piercing, angered eyes glared at him the whole time.

 

_ “No more 'Puny Parker.' Never again will we be weak. _ _  Never.” _


	2. Friends and Family

As Peter walked from the elevator to Aunt May’s hospital room, the Symbiote made him remember what his aunt’s heart attack was costing him.

 

Every day she spent in recovery was even more money that he had to scrounge up. And Tombstone’s one-week probation period wasn’t helping matters.

 

_ “Why are we going to see her in the first place? She’s done nothing but cause problems for us.” _

 

Peter kicked in the Men’s Room door and threw out the man washing his hands at the sink.

 

“What the-?” Doctor Bromwell exclaimed as the man collided with a nurse out in the hall. He ran to a phone and called for security.

 

As he slammed the door shut, his skin-tight black T-Shirt turned into a viscous, charcoal liquid that consumed his body in a matter of seconds, eventually forming into the black Spidey costume that had made his life so much better over the past few weeks.

 

He was out the window and webslinging before security guards arrived to apprehend him.

 

—

 

Unable to beat up criminals without violating his deal with Tombstone, Peter had no way of blowing off steam and letting out his anger. Deep down, the Symbiote wouldn’t have it any other way. It fed off Peter’s negative emotions, and fed his mind with even more negativity.

 

Peter landed on his front lawn, the suit dissolving away and forming back into his shirt. His brow furrowed in anger as his mind filled with more and more hatred for the people he used to call his “friends.”

 

_ “Aunt May, Eddie, Gwen, Flash… All they do is get in our way. We don’t need them.” _

 

In his maddened state, he not only ripped off the doorknob, but crushed it into an unrecognizable shape.

 

With a grunt, he threw the doorknob across the street and kicked the door open.

 

The world would learn, Peter decided, that both Spider-Man and Peter Parker were forces to be reckoned with.

 

_ “No one will ever stand in our way again.” _


	3. Public Safety

Uncle Ben once told Peter that “with great power, comes great responsibility.”

 

The Symbiote recognized this message as a threat to Peter’s and, by extension, its desires, and buried it under all the rage the suit had been exacerbating since its first contact with wall-crawler.

 

A  _ reinterpretation  _ of Uncle Ben’s message was in order, or else Peter, and the tremendous power of Spider-Man, would slip away from the suit's intoxicating influence and reject it.

 

_ “Sure, with great power comes great responsibility,”  _ the Symbiote told Peter as he slept that night,  _ “But what about our responsibility to ourselves? We have great power; We should be able to use it however we want. We deserve it after all we’ve done. Fighting the Lizard, Green Goblin, the Sinister Six? What do we get from it? Jameson’s lies and a fistful of bruises. We don’t owe the world a thing. We never did.” _

 

_ — _

 

It was a weekday, but Peter didn’t give a shit about school anymore. He was already a certifiable genius as far as he was concerned. What could some second-rate, minimum-wage-earning, B.A-from-a-crappy-state-college high school instructor teach him? He was able to outsmart the likes of Doc Ock.  _ Twice. _

 

And in the second case, it was all thanks to the Symbiote latching itself to his suit. The black, alien ooze was infinitely smarter and more powerful than he was, and that was to his own advantage as far as he was concerned.

 

Scratch that; It was to  _ their  _ advantage. Peter and the Symbiote’s bond was of mutual benefit.

 

Anything he couldn’t do, the Symbiote helped him do. He couldn’t fight the Sinister Six on his own, but with the Symbiote in full control, they were all taken down while he was  _ asleep. _ Spider-Man got the job done, and Peter got a big fat check for unwittingly photographing the whole thing.

 

Or at least as big and fat a check from J. Jonah “skinflint” Jameson would ever sign.

 

As Spidey swung from building to building, he saw crimes happening all over: An old woman getting her purse snatched, a car chase between police and armed gunmen, a robbery at a convenience store, and so on.

 

He didn’t do a thing. 

 

And it was no longer simply about maintaining his deal with Tombstone, though that was definitely still in play.

 

For too long he’d been saving the people of New York without asking for anything in return, not even a thanks. Everytime he saved their asses, they’d repay him by purchasing a copy of the Daily Bugle with lies about him plastered all over the cover.

 

So when a garbage truck, its brakes having gone out, found itself barrelling down a street into a busy crosswalk, Spidey just swung right by.

 

From then on, Spider-Man was through with saving people.


	4. Manipulations of the Mind

As Peter Parker slept, Spider-Man shot black web after black web, swinging above the city. The Symbiote pondered its next course of action.

 

While it primarily fed off of Peter’s negative emotions, it also gained much of its energy from the formation of adrenaline. That’s what made Spider-Man such a good host: Just the act of swinging from building to building gave the alien creature more strength and control. One could even say the Symbiote was secretly a thrill-seeker of sorts.

 

However, the Symbiote knew that its relationship with Peter was fragile. It could drive Peter deeper and deeper into selfishness and greed, but making him miserable and feeding off that could only go so far. It was only a matter of time until Peter realized what it was doing. It would have to remind him why he loved his black suit to begin with, before any doubts entered his mind.

 

_ “Fight no crime for one week,”  _ Tombstone had said.

 

While they were definitely done fighting for the people of New York, the Symbiote knew Peter missed the thrill that he got from pummeling muggers in alleyways.

 

_ “You have dispensation if a supervillain endangers public safety…” _

 

And every supervillain in his rogue’s gallery was locked up on Rikers Island...

 

The Symbiote had an idea.

 

It would have to wait until morning though.

 

Doing this without Peter’s input would surely result in him seeing it as going too far.

 

It would have to subtly convince him otherwise.

 

—

 

For the first time in days, Peter awoke to the blaring of his alarm clock. He promptly smashed it to pieces. Over the past week, the suit wasn’t just augmenting his spider-powers, but had also been increasing his strength and durability tenfold, even when he was just Peter Parker.

 

Plus, it wasn’t just that his muscle mass was growing; He felt as though all of his bodily processes were at peak efficiency, or even beyond. And to think it was all the work of some alien slime.

 

The Symbiote was no longer relegated to the floor whenever Peter slept; It simply transformed into a black undershirt and black boxer shorts, so they would never have to be apart.

 

As Peter stood out of bed, he quickly transformed into his familiar black suit, his Spider-Sense going off for some strange reason.

 

After seeing that there was no immediate danger, Peter suddenly felt drawn to the window.

 

Looking outside, he saw a copy of the Daily Bugle sitting on the porch. Before he could even think about what this could mean, black webbing shot out of his wrist, pushing open the window and bringing the newspaper to him in an instant.

 

On the cover, the headline read “Police Chief Says Second Sinister Six Breakout Impossible, New Facility Virtually Impenetrable.”

 

_ “That’s total garbage. They broke out once, they’ll break out again. _

 

_ “And who’ll have to clean up the mess? We will. _

 

_ “And it won’t be for them. Not anymore. It’ll just be for the satisfaction of beating those peabrains to a pulp. To finish what we started.” _

 

Distorted memories of Spider-Man about to impale Doctor Octopus with his own robotic claw flashed before Peter’s eyes.

 

“I almost did that?” he asked out loud.

 

_ “WE almost did that,”  _ the Symbiote corrected,  _ “And we would have succeeded if Captain Stacy hadn’t have showed up and ruined our fun.” _

 

“But-” Peter started to say before the Symbiote, whose voice in his head was indistinguishable from his own, interrupted.

 

_ “They wanted to kill us. They wanted to  _ destroy  _ us. Doc Ock himself said that he would separate us if he got the chance. We can’t let him. We can’t let  _ anyone. _ ” _

 

Peter knew what his mind was suggesting. And the suit was so intoxicating, so controlling of his conscience, that he agreed.

 

_ “We’re coming for you, Sinister Six,”  _ Peter and the Symbiote thought as Spider-Man swung his way towards Rikers Island.

 

_ “And this time you’re not making it out alive.” _


	5. A Simple Rematch

The first obstacle Spidey faced was getting to Rikers Island in the first place.

 

_ “How do we get across the water? It’s not like we can fly-” _

 

Suddenly, Spidey knew exactly what to do. The Symbiote drew from his knowledge of real spiders and gave him an idea he hadn’t considered.

 

_ “Or maybe we can…” _

 

He felt the suit sense the direction of the wind currents over the East River, and almost instinctively shot a net of webbing into the air to catch the wind like a sail.

 

_ “I’m-  _ We’re _ flying!”  _  he thought as the wind carried him up above the water.

 

_ “Swinging from buildings is great, but the old Spidey would have  _ never  _ thought of this,”  _ the Symbiote added.

 

Spidey let go of the web once he had reached the prison. Landing quietly within the walls, the black suit changed its appearance briefly so as not to be spotted; Spidey’s spider symbols morphed from white to a dark black, and his white eyes changed to a medium grey.

 

His Spider-Sense, enhanced by the suit, allowed him to pinpoint where all his enemies were in the prison.

 

First on the menu that night was Doc Ock. He was in solitary confinement, in the maximum security wing.

 

Prying open an air vent with his bare hands, Spidey thought,  _ “Maximum security? A school locker is harder to get into than this. Then again, they’re probably not expecting someone to break  _ into  _ prison.” _

 

—

 

There was one vent in Ock’s cell, on the ceiling. It was designed to be positively unremovable and unbreakable. From the outside, that is.

 

“Soon, Spider-Man,” Ock said to no one in particular, “I’ll be right back on the outside and you’ll be as good as dead.”

 

“You might want to think twice about that,” Spidey said from a darkened corner.

 

Before Doc Ock could exclaim in fear, a strand of black webbing was shot over his mouth, silencing him.

 

“Now don’t do that to us Doc, we don’t want anyone interrupting our little chat with you now…”

 

Octavius tried to get away, but Spidey webbed him to the wall.

 

“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” Spidey said in a decidedly sinister tone.

 

Doc Ock wanted to scream, but he just couldn’t.

 

—

 

After getting rid of Doc Ock, Spidey made easy work of the rest of the Six’s easily-accessible baddies. Shocker and Vulture, also in solitary, were nothing without their special suits.

 

“W-wait a minute,” Shocker had pleaded with him, “You’re supposed to be the good guy. You can’t do this!”

 

Shocker didn’t say much after that on account of being strangled, but Spidey decided to humor him with a response.

 

“Why not? I have the power. Why not use it?”

 

By that point however, Shocker could no longer hear him.

 

The remaining three of the Six were in the area known as “The Vault,” a special section of the prison for superpowered individuals. Rhino and Sandman were back in their old cells (this time with their own power supply to prevent further breakouts), and Electro was being held there temporarily until he could be transferred to Ravencroft to continue rehabilitation.

 

It was probably the most dangerous place each of them could possibly be.

 

The security officer watching the cameras was quickly incapacitated, which gave Spidey ample time to stealthily knock out each and every guard in between him and the recently-downsized Sinister Three. If they saw him, he simply killed them and that was that. No witnesses. He was still riding high on New York’s misplaced trust in him, especially after that imposter business with Cameleon. 

 

Each security camera was blotted out by his webbing before each strike, which no longer had a two-hour limit before disintegrating: Thanks to the black suit, Spidey now had an almost-telepathic link to his webbing, as it was still a semi-functioning part of the Symbiote even after detachment. Therefore, the second he wanted to, he could make his webbing disintegrate by sheer mental will.

 

The titanium doors inside The Vault were easy work as a result of Spidey’s ever-growing strength. His build was that of a bodybuilder now, though he still retained his superb acrobatic ability. It was truly the best of both worlds.

 

—

 

Electro awoke with a jolt when Spider-Man kicked down the magnetically-sealed door into the Vault. He instinctively tried to generate electricity in self-defense, but his new retraining bracelets were hard to break.

 

_ “Do not approach walls or door, or-”  _ the computer system tried to say before Spidey smashed through the glass. In an instant, tendrils shot out from Spidey’s black suit, covering the broken edges so as to make the computer think the window was still intact.

 

“Hey, w-wait, what are you doing here? We had our fight, we lost! GO AWAY!”

 

Electro’s screams were heard all the way over in Sandman and Rhino’s cells.

 

“Hey, what’s up with Sparky over there?” Sandman asked, concerned.

 

“Probably just another nightmare…” Rhino bitterly replied, “Now go back to sleep.”

 

Electro’s screams were suddenly muffled.

 

“See?” Rhino said, “He’s over it.”

 

“I guess.”

 

The following silence was interrupted a few seconds later when Spider-Man shattered the window looking into Sandman’s cell, sealed the edges to trick the computer, and tossed Electro’s dead body onto Marko’s lap.

 

“What the hell’s going on over there?” Rhino asked, concerned. He couldn’t approach the walls or door without tranquilizing gas filling the cell and knocking him out.

 

In his stunned silence, Sandman looked down at Electro’s body. His death somehow triggered an overload of his electrical powers, but the restraining cuffs were holding it back, though just barely. On closer inspection, however, the cuffs were actually covered in Spidey’s black webbing, and were way past their operating limits.

 

Sandman tried to fight back against the wallcrawler, but Spider-Man quickly leaped down the hall as the webbing around the cuffs disintegrated, releasing all of Electro’s power into one, fatal explosion.

 

When the dust cleared, what used to be Flint Marko was now a smear of glass lining the wall, all consciousness wiped out in the blast. The wall adjoining his cell to Rhino’s was now blown down, knocking O’Hirn out but not killing him. Electro’s body was reduced to a charred husk.

 

While Spidey was unable to make the computer think everything was fine, his filling of the wall’s base with webbing merely tricked it into thinking Rhino had charged at the door, resulting in tranquilizing gas filling the air.

 

“W-what?” Rhino groggily muttered as Spidey grabbed the collapsed wall off from on top of him, “You? What are you doing?”

 

“It’s like this, Rhino,” Spidey icily said as he lifted the wall up above his head, “We're through with not getting what we want.”

 

“Who's 'we'? W-wait, you can’t do this! We’re in jail! We’re finished!” Rhino slurred as he became dazed from the gas.

 

“That’s funny,” Spidey said with a cold chuckle, “We're finished too.”

 

He positioned the titanium wall right above Rhino’s neck, and brought it down hard, finishing him off for good.

 

“We're finished trying to be a _Friendly_ Neighborhood Spider-Man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those keeping score, Spidey’s build now matches his build in the 1990s animated series, though the spider-logo is still the same as it was in Intervention.


	6. The Job

Tombstone checked his watch. It was 11 o’clock.

 

Precisely on schedule, Spider-Man appeared an upper ceiling corner near his desk.

 

“It’s good that you’ve learned to be more stealthy with your entrances. Or else the job I have for you would be rather difficult.”

 

“It’s good that you have a job for us at all after that whole week of waiting,” Spidey said, “Or else we’d have to smash your head into that nice desk of yours.”

 

Tombstone let out a chuckle before continuing, “I hear you made easy work of those supervillains on Rikers. I’ll admit to being surprised that you’d go so far as to kill them, but that’ll make your job tonight significantly more straightforward.”

 

“It isn’t wise to leave your enemies around. Or else they’ll get you when you least expect them.”

 

“Wall-crawler, I have a feeling that this will become a very lucrative partnership. Don’t prove me wrong. Now, your mission…”

 

Tombstone got up and began pacing about the room.

 

“In the spire of the Chrysler Building, there lies a secret, impenetrable fortress. Inside it lies the headquarters of my competitor, the so-called ‘Kingpin of crime’.” 

 

“We thought you were the Kingpin of Crime, Tomby,” Spidey remarked.

 

“The fact that you haven’t heard of him is precisely the point. While I have covered my crimes up with acts of philanthropy,  _ he  _ has kept himself so secret that the mere discovery of his location cost me several operatives.”

 

“So you want us to take him out?”

 

“Yes, though that’s a secondary objective. Your primary objective is to steal something for me: A rare top secret ore sample Kingpin’s men stole from the government, Promethium X. Reportedly, it’s inside a titanium-reinforced concrete vault deep inside the Kingpin’s headquarters.”

 

“Sounds like easy money.”

 

“The only problematic part, for you at least, is that nobody knows where the safe is except for the Kingpin. I don’t care how you get it out of him, just as long as you get the X back here intact. We will discuss payment  _ after  _ you’ve completed the job. Now get to work.”

 

When Tombstone turned around, Spider-Man was gone.

 

\---

 

“Smythe,” Kingpin said as the adamantium-reinforced security door sealed behind him, “I have buyers lined up for that rock, and they want it yesterday.”

 

Smythe, Kingpin’s resident scientific genius, rolled in on his high-tech mobility-chair.

 

“I need to examine it first,” he insisted.

 

“Then do it.”

 

“The only problem with that is that I  _ can’t _ unless I have specially-enhanced control rods.”

 

“Then we’ll get some.”

 

“Unfortunately, all control rods made of lithium-nitrate are in a government repository of which we have no access.”

 

“Nothing is inaccessible to me.”

 

Then, all of a sudden, the power completely went out.

 

“Same for us,” a voice called out from the darkness.

 

“Who is that?” Kingpin bellowed, his voice echoing throughout the room.

 

“Including your oh-so-entry-proof security system,” the voice continued, its tone creepily monotone.

 

“Auxiliary guards! Get up here, now!” Kingpin shouted into his intercom system. 

 

As the red emergency lights came on, the large security door was ripped right off its hinges and thrown in Kingpin’s direction. Kingpin was able to dodge out of the way, but the door smashed right into Smythe, killing him.

 

“Spider-Man? Anti-intruder systems, fire!” Kingpin ordered, recognizing the webslinger and immediately realizing the danger.

 

Automated gun-turrets fired upon Spidey, who leaped into the air and quickly neutralized them with his webbing.

 

“How did you get in here?!” Kingpin demanded to know.

 

“Same way we managed to wipe out every supervillain threat in this city in one night. Poor security kills, you know.”

 

A squad of security guards rushed into the room.

 

“Speaking of which…”

 

Spider-Man made quick work of the merely-human security guards, brutally injuring several of them at first just for fun but eventually resorting to simply shooting webbing over their mouths and noses, which more or less killed them in minutes.

 

“Is that all you got?” Spidey gloated as he stood before Kingpin.

 

Kingpin pulled out a pistol and fired straight at Spider-Man. But rather than dodge the bullets, the Symbiote forced Spidey to stay right where he was.

 

“Auuuugh!” Spidey cried out as the bullets hit him.

 

Expecting to be in great pain, it was to Spidey’s shock that the suit completely absorbed the impact, letting the flattened bullets drop to the floor.

 

Kingpin, genuinely beginning to fear for his life, emptied the entire clip into Spider-Man, his suit absorbing every impact and spitting out the useless rounds.

 

“Tombstone sent you, didn’t he?” Kingpin asked as Spidey leaped back into the air, “Well, whatever he’s paying you I’ll double it!”

 

Spidey suddenly came swinging down, right into Kingpin’s chest. The crime boss hit the computer consoles behind him, smashing them completely.

 

“Kind offer,” Spidey remarked, striding up to him, “but you’re not exactly in a position to negotiate.”

 

Spidey lifted Kingpin and threw him across the room.

 

“This ends when you tell me where the Promethium X is.”

 

“That’s what you want?” Kingpin spat out, “Tombstone  _ must  _ have sent you. Only he would have the audacity to send a superhero to do his dirty work.”

 

Spider-Man planted his foot firmly on Kingpin’s stomach.

 

“I’m not a superhero anymore. And you need to stop talking unless it’s something I want to hear.”

 

“I’m not going to tell the likes of you!”

 

“We’ll see about that.”

 

Before he could even think, Kingpin found himself being thrown across the room again, this time straight into the large triangular windows that adorned walls of his headquarters. The impact was so heavy that the glass cracked slightly.

 

Kingpin immediately began to fall from the window, only to be caught midair by a strand of black webbing. His relief was short-lived, however, as Spider-Man swung into the window, shattering it to pieces. The cold New York air filled the room. Spidey swung back in and grabbed Kingpin, smacking him back down on the ground.

 

“You’ve fucking broken every bone in my body!”

 

Spider-Man was silent as he dragged the white-suited man over to the broken window.

 

“Hey, wait,” the once-great Kingpin began to stammer, “You can’t do this to me!”

 

“We can,” Spidey replied, “And will.”

 

He grabbed Kingpin by the collar and held him out over the city.

 

“Now,” Spidey continued, “Tell me where it is.”

 

Kingpin paused for no more than two seconds as he pondered a response. Even then, Spidey was impatient.

 

“I feel my grip slipping...”

 

“Alright!” Kingpin blurted out, “It’s on the 68th floor! In the vault! You can have it!”

 

“And the combination?”

 

“It opens only to my DNA scan! I’ll do it for you! Just get me back inside goddammit!”

 

Spider-Man paused, making Kingpin think he was going to live. Unfortunately that pause didn’t last long.

 

“I don’t need you to be alive to get your DNA,” Spidey coldly remarked.

 

All hope drained from the Kingpin’s face.

 

“Next time,” Spidey continued, “Invest in voice-print technology.”

 

Spider-Man then let go of the Kingpin, letting him drop several stories before firing a web to catch him.

 

Of course, still as knowledgeable as ever about physics, Spidey knew that grabbing his back and bringing him to a sudden stop mid-fall wouldn’t save him, but rather produce so much whiplash that it would, in fact, kill him instantly.

 

It did.

 

\---

 

“Your competitor is dead, and the rock is yours,” Spidey said as he threw the bag containing the Promethium X sample onto Tombstone’s desk, “Now about that payment?”

 

“Good work,” Tombstone replied, “Now your next mission…”

 

“Next mission?” Spider-Man asked, “ _ We want our payment now!” _

 

“I said we would  _ discuss _ payment. I never said it was guaranteed. That is how I do things.”

 

“Well you’re gonna have to change how you do things if you like how your face is arranged,” Spidey said as he grabbed Tombstone by the throat and threatened to strangle him.

 

“S-sonic...blaster...fire!” Tombstone choked out.

 

Suddenly, the Symbiote began shrieking in pain. Peter Parker felt that pain as well, dropping Tombstone and falling backwards onto the floor. After a few moments, the pain stopped, and the Symbiote attempted to regain its strength, Peter trembling on the floor.

 

“I was lucky enough to read some of Dr. Connors’ preliminary tests on the extraterrestrial that currently makes up your costume. My researchers, upon closer inspection, saw indications that it could be injured by high-capacity sonic vibrations. On that hunch, I decided to install sonic emitters around me in case our partnership...got out of control.”

 

Spider-Man got up and glared at Tombstone, his eyes ablaze with anger.

 

“Remember your place in my organization,  _ wall-crawler.  _ Now get out and return when you’ve given your role here more respect.”

 

After Spidey had left, Tombstone went to the bag to look at his capture. It would be safe, as it was known that Promethium X wasn’t reactive unless given heat or electrical stimuli. Only then would one get the explosive results that made the ore such an important find.

 

Upon opening the bag, Tombstone’s eyes went wide in shock. An small device with the  Spider-Man logo was attached to the sample. A device with the ability to generate electricity. And it was activating. A note was attached: 

 

“Courtesy Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.”

 

Less than a moment later, the upper floors of the building were destroyed in a horrific explosion, killing not only Tombstone, but every high-level member of his operation.

 

Spider-Man couldn’t help but smirk. A paycheck would have been nice, but sending the criminal underworld into a chaotic turmoil was good too.


	7. The Death of Peter Parker

Peter woke up to the sound of the front door knocking.

 

He got out of bed, angry at whomever was disturbing his sleep. As Peter generated a black web and swung down the stairs, his sleeping attire morphed into a pair of dark jeans and a black T-shirt. Black shoes and white socks formed around his feet.

 

He looked out the window. It was Gwen.

 

His blood boiled.

 

_“What could she possibly want?”_

 

He could have opened the door and asked that same question to Gwen, but he didn’t. She wasn’t worth his time. She didn’t really care about him. No one did.

 

No one except the Symbiote.

 

_—_

 

Gwen stood at the door, desperately hoping that Peter would answer it.

 

But as the seconds grew longer, she got nervous. She _had_ to talk to him. She couldn’t stand another day of hoping that Pete would show back up at school.

 

Gwen frantically reached down and lifted up the Parkers’ welcome mat, grabbing the key underneath and opening the door.

 

Peter stood only a few feet away from the doorway, his fists clenched and his brow furrowed in restrained, bitter hatred.

 

“H-hi, Pete…” Gwen timidly began.

 

“What are you doing here?” Peter immediately asked, his tone resentful and harsh.

 

“Well you weren’t in school, a-and I want-, I mean I needed to talk to you-”

 

“ _What?_ ” Peter angrily spat out, “You think you can just show up and ask to _talk_ ? What the _hell_ is talking is going to do for us?”

 

“I- I thought it would help…”

 

“ _I thought I made it clear that I didn’t need your fucking help!”_ Peter shouted.

 

The ends of his sleeves and pant-legs were ever-so-slightly liquefying and crawling towards his hands and feet. The hint of a white spider emblem began to materialize on his back.

 

Gwen turned around to run. Whatever was going on with Peter, she couldn’t help him on her own without endangering herself.

 

But before she could even step through the threshold, a black web grabbed Gwen by the back and threw her against the back wall.

 

Her head ringing and her body in pain from the impact - an impact so great in put a dent into the wall - Gwen looked up and saw Peter, the formerly good-natured boy she had known since the second grade, full of unbridled rage and standing over her injured body without a tinge of guilt.

 

Peter’s sleeves rapidly got longer until they wrapped around his hands. His waistband disappeared as this pants melded into his shirt, both losing their cloth-like texture and becoming more like jet-black Spandex. A white spider logo, larger than Spidey’s most-recent one, formed on his chest and back, this time its legs stretching all the way around to both sides.

 

Peter’s face, still full of unclenched anger, disappeared as his neckline flowed up and around it, forming his black Spidey mask. White rectangles appeared on the back of his hands. Spidey aimed his fist at Gwen, black webbing shooting out of the white boxes instead of his wrists like before. He caught Gwen by the neck and thrusted her against the wall.

 

The Symbiote was in control now. It’s influence had spread throughout his brain to the point where it could overshadow Peter even during the day, to do things it knew he couldn’t.

 

“P-Pete…” Gwen coughed out as Spider-Man strangled her, now utterly cold and emotionless.

 

The Symbiote sent tendrils out from Spidey’s fingertips, wrapping around Gwen’s neck and strangling her even harder. When it was clear that the deed was done, the Symbiote dropped her to the floor.

 

By the end of that day, the house Peter Parker had called home for over 15 years was left behind forever, the body of the girl who had once been his best friend lying dead on its floor.

 

As Spider-Man swung past sirens heading in the opposite direction, it was decided that Peter Parker was dead. His life had always paled in comparison to Spidey’s, and it was about time he chose one over the other.

 

All he needed was the right push.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What black-suit-Spidey’s new appearance in this chapter likely looks like: https://valrahmortem.deviantart.com/art/The-Spectacular-Spider-Man-Original-Black-Suit-310145666


	8. Loose Ends

The Symbiote slowly relinquished control of Peter’s body, its influence over him now permanent.

 

Black tendrils were now directly intertwined with his nervous system. While they were still two entities, their minds were completely indistinguishable. The Symbiote no longer needed to overshadow him. They were both on the same page.

 

_ “Gwen deserves what she got. We should have gotten rid of her a long time ago. We should have gotten rid of anyone who got in our way. _

 

_ “Well… Better late than never.” _

 

—

 

“Enjoying your last night in the hospital, Ms. Parker?” the nurse asked as she took away May’s food tray.

 

“Oh yes,” May replied, “It’ll be so good to get home. I haven’t seen Peter in so long. He must have been too busy to visit me. Oh, could you shut off the light. It’s getting awfully late and I ought to get some shuteye.”

 

The nurse shut off the light and quietly closed the door. May turned onto her pillow and drifted off to sleep.

 

And outside her window, Spider-Man was waiting.

 

He crawled up the side of the building, stealthily moving under the cover of night.

 

He opened the window, silently and sinisterly making his way towards May’s bed.

 

_ “No more hospital bills. No more curfews. No more rules.” _

 

And with one quick maneuver, May Parker’s neck was snapped.

 

_ “No more Aunt May.” _

 

Spidey was long gone by the time a team of doctors and nurses arrived to resuscitate May, who by that point was long since dead.

 

—

 

Spider-Man silently landed on a perch overlooking Midtown High. It was the beginning of the day, so everyone was just hanging around the courtyard.

 

Each and every one of the people who used to belittle him or have the gall to call him their “friend” were going to pay. 

 

He was going to enjoy this.

 

The first one to go would have to be Flash. The Symbiote had pinned him as a threat ever since they saw each other at the hospital, figuring that if anyone could snap Peter out of its influence it would be the person he’d least expect to make sense.

 

But of course that ship had long since sailed, as Spidey and the black suit were now both physically and mentally inseparable.

 

Spidey, crawling through the air ducts, found Flash in the locker room, changing after gym class. The bell rang, and the rest of the guys in the room ran out to get to class.

 

“Shit,” Flash muttered, still in the middle of changing his clothes, “Guys, wait!”

 

Spidey landed right behind him, completely unnoticed. He tapped Flash on the shoulder, and the second Flash turned around, Spidey’s fist collided with his face at full-force. At this point Spider-Man’s strength was far beyond the mere “proportional strength of a spider” that he had originated with.

 

_ “How does it feel, Eugene? Being on the receiving end this time around?” _

 

As the jock laid unconscious on the ground, half of his face badly disfigured, Spider-Man kicked him repeatedly, until he got tired of that, and ripped off a locker door, beating him with that.

 

_ “We should have done this a long time ago.” _

 

His Spider-Sense detected someone approaching, and he quickly finished the job with a snap of the neck before jumping back up into the air duct.

 

The satisfaction of revenge felt so invigorating. Even the Symbiote, which normally fed off negativity, was strengthened by the catharsis.

 

Hopefully the rest of their deaths would be as enjoyable.


	9. Here Lies Eddie Brock

“Gwen Stacy, dead. May Parker, dead. Flash Thompson, dead. Liz Allen, dead. Mary Jane Watson, dead. Sally Avril, dead. Doctor Connors and his wife, dead.”

 

Jameson slammed his hand on the desk.

 

“People die every day, Robbie! Why’re you listing all their names like they were in some sort of weird suicide pact?!”

 

“Because Jonah, there’s one thing they all have in common.”

 

“And what’s that, Sherlock Holmes?”

 

“They all have some relation to Peter Parker!”

 

Jameson’s face softened slightly, before burying that softness under his usual, shouty exterior.

 

“Coincidence! Why are you wasting my time with all this bullshit?”

 

“Because it doesn’t look like the police have discovered the connection yet. Listen to this: Stacy, Allen, Thompson, Avril and Watson all went to the same school as Peter. And not only that, he hasn’t been in school in weeks. Police haven’t been able to locate him, and the house was completely abandoned. And hospital staff stated that he only visited May in the hospital once. The second time he showed up he beat some guy up in the bathroom and disappeared.”

 

“Parker beating up a guy? Couldn’t be him.”

 

“Students reported Peter acting hostile before he stopped showing up to school. Also, in the case of the Connors, records show that they had fired Peter from an internship a couple months prior.”

 

“Wait a minute, you’re not implying that Peter-”

 

Jameson was cut off by the sound of the window breaking.

 

A small, black rock hit him on the head. Attached to it was a small electronic device with a spider-logo on it.

 

“Ow!” Jameson exclaimed before looking at what hit him.

 

“Hey,” he said, noticing the spider-shaped device on the rock, “Spider-Man threw a rock at me! Brant! Call me lawyer, tell him we’re gonna sue Spider-Man for assault and battery!”

 

Before Betty could pick up a phone, the device activated and the entire Daily Bugle offices were engulfed in a massive explosion, disintegrating everyone inside, Jameson, Robbie, and Betty included.

 

_ “Just a little thing left over from our employment with Tombstone,”  _ Spidey remarked,  _ “Consider it a present for all the times you blasted our name.” _

 

Spidey stood up and looked over at the skyline.

 

_ “And now there’s only one more troublemaker left to take care of…” _

 

—

 

Eddie bitterly walked back to his apartment. Not only had he been slowly going broke for the past couple weeks since he lost his job (which resulted in him having to drop out of Empire State), Gwen’s death was taking a huge toll on him.

 

His thoughts drifted to Peter being somehow involved. She was found in his house after all. It was just another step down for that asshole, which made him an easy suspect.

 

Though wasn’t like anyone would believe him. Peter Parker was, last he checked, still on many people’s lists of those who could do no wrong.

 

_ Just like Spider-Man _ , Eddie thought, not for a second realizing the irony of those words.

 

“Spider-Man and Peter… Cost me my job, my school…”

 

He got to his apartment door and put in his key, but the door wouldn’t budge. An eviction notice was taped to the door.

 

“...my apartment...”

 

He sat down on the steps outside and zipped up his jacket, trying to combat the bitter November air.

 

“Hi Eddie,” a voice called out to him.

 

Eddie looked over to the alleyway and, despite the darkness, was able to see Spider-Man, hanging upside down from a black web.

 

“Fuck you!” Eddie shouted.

 

In an instant, Spidey fired a single strand of webbing at Eddie’s chest, throwing him against the brick wall with force that, while not lethal, definitely hurt like hell.

 

Eddie groaned in pain, every bone in his body broken. Webbing was shot at his feet and hands, restraining him.

 

“We were hoping you’d say that,” Spidey said, remaining upside-down above Eddie.

 

“W-we?”

 

Before Eddie could say anything, Spidey shot a web over to a jagged piece of metal sitting in the trash and pushed it up against Eddie’s throat.

 

“Let me go, you fucking asshole!” Eddie shouted.

 

“Oh you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Spidey coldly asked, applying more force to Eddie’s throat.

 

“What the  **fuck** did I ever do to you?!” Eddie demanded to know.

 

“You threatened us with your presence, Eddie. You believed lies about us. Which means you can’t be allowed to live.”

 

“My presence?! I don’t even know you!”

 

And for a brief moment, Eddie could have swore that a devilish smile began to form across the front of Spidey’s solid-black mask. Then, to his surprise, the mask began to pull itself back somehow, revealing the face underneath to be one belonging to…

 

“PETE?!” Eddie exclaimed, before being promptly shut up by a strand of webbing being shot at his mouth. Spidey, his mask still off, let go of the web he was hanging from and stood up in the alley.

 

“It’s a shame,” he said as he pulled Eddie off the wall by the neck, “Now you have to die.”

 

“Actually, it’s not a shame,” Spidey then said, his mask quickly beginning to grow back, “There’s no one left alive to miss you.”

 

Eddie’s eyes bulged in terror as Spidey held him in the air, the webslinger’s grip tightening around his neck. Spidey’s mask fully-regenerated, its silvery eyes transforming into a significantly more alien appearance. His muscles grew. His height increased. Razor-sharp claws formed at his fingertips, piercing Eddie’s neck. Eddie slowly lost consciousness. The last thing he saw was a monstrous, terrifying teeth-filled mouth forming on Spidey’s face. A horrible, high-pitched roar was the last thing he heard, followed by three, simple words: 

 

_ “We...are...Venom.” _


End file.
